Hello. By chance or design, you've found your way to one of our series of Scottish
and European Crucible podcasts, exploring and celebrating the many Scottish and
European crucibles, their participants, or as we like to call them now, alumni, and
the impact the former has had on the latter's lives and careers.

Today, we've three Scottish cruciblists from three different years, all now Professors,
there's Emily Combet, Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow, and
Director of SCAF, the Scottish Alliance for Food. There's Myrila Delibegovic, Professor
in Diabetes Physiology and Signaling at the University of Aberdeen, and Research
Director of the Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Centre, and Robin Sloan,
Professor of Game Design and Culture at Abertay.

We're going to start by asking each of them about how they got involved in crucible in the first place, how they
found out about it, what made them decide to take part and where they were in
their academic career when they applied. And Mirola,

I'm going to start with you because I think you were part of the very first ever Scottish Crucible back in
2009.

Yes, that's right. In 2009, we got an email, a random email.
It was described as Scottish Crucible being for bright and creative thinkers. And I
just thought that sounded really exciting. At that time, I had just started up my
own lab. I had done a four -year postdoc in Boston and came back to UK as a
faculty member on a tenure track position. And I just thought, well, this sounds
quite exciting. I wanted to meet like -minded people. So I made an application and I
actually just found my original application before we spoke and what I was looking
for it asked one of the questions said where do you see yourself in ten years time
and I think reflecting back now I think Crucible has helped me achieve a lot more
but we could talk about that later. Exactly we will get on to where you are now
you already had a yen towards interdisciplinarity did you you were looking not just
to meet people who are from the same sector as you but from other areas?
Absolutely. One of the things I had put in my application is that I was looking
for people such as mathematicians and people who were thinking slightly differently to
me and wanting to make impact in policy and social behaviour as well.
So, interdisciplinarity was something that I had heard of but I had not experienced
prior to my crucible experience.

Excellent. Now, Emily, I think you were a couple of
years later, 2011, so you at least had the advantage over Mirala that you probably
could hear testimony from previous participants.

I think that's right. Although I don't think I knew anyone on two cohorts that had been on the crucible before mine.
So I think I saw the website and I saw this kind of group of people who looked
all fairly happy together in the in the website picture and I think what really
appealed was the notion that all those people were from extremely different
disciplines and sectors and they were all coming together at this kind of stage in
their career. It was all early career people really starting on the journey together
and I think that came as a very strong vision for the program. This notion of you
build a cohort of people and you will be not with them but around each other for
the rest of your career and I think that really kind of carries through the program
really really nicely. So when I joined I think I'd just about been appointed as a
lecturer in nutrition but that's not my academic background so I changed discipline a
couple of times before that. So I was in this kind of space where there was a lot
of transition. There was a lot of new questions and obviously starting a lab is
stressful. You're in that new environment. Crucible was very, very good in putting me
in the vicinity of other people who lived through the similar challenges,
basically.

Yes, I'm interested that you say about the photograph being a deciding
factor because I've hosted various of these crucibles and you always gather together
for a group photo at the end and the photographer says smile and I always think
whatever happens to those photos but if they're actually encouraging the next cohort
to sign up then they're performing a very useful function. Robin you're the you're
the most recent of our trio today 2015. Yeah it doesn't feel like I'm the most
recent it feels like quite a long time ago to me now so I was actually encouraged
to apply by my PhD supervisor.
career I'd kind of pivoted into kind of almost full -time teaching because of the
nature of game design and creative practice that's a lot of what we do is spend
our time in the labs working with students which is great but the raising of
Scottish Crisible by my supervisor with me kind of reminded me that I've trained as
a researcher as well and I had to reconnect with that and my PhD wasn't into the
story of PhDs my backgrounds art and design you know it was a game developer prior
to doing my PhD. But I undertook a PhD that was across psychology, animation and
design, my own field. And I really saw the, yeah, you mentioned the photographs, I
saw the photographs, I saw the testimonies, and I saw this cohort of people right
across disciplines. I never really thought about myself as a scientist before, because
I'm more of a creative practitioner, but interdisciplinary PhD kind of really opened
my eyes to the kind of things we could do together. And I had a really strong
interest actually in that time in science communication because I was working so
closely with people across the university who were for more traditional scientific
backgrounds. And I had this idea that the kind of area that I worked in in games
and drafted media was really ripe for communicating science and engaging publicly
science. And it's also one of those things, whenever you bring so -called creatives
and so -called scientists together, you realise there's a lot more creativity in
science and a lot more science in creativity than we sometimes give credit for.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that was something that I was kind of aware of, but
hadn't really fully appreciated until I could have had this opportunity to engage to
Scottish people with such a diverse range of people. Tricky question for you. And I
realise having done quite a few of these podcasts now, although whoever's listening
to this may have only heard this might be their first one. I've never got anybody
to say how would you define in just a few sentences what a crucible is?
So I'm going to throw this at you Robin first. Oh yeah that's a tough question,
glad you picked me first, the bland version if you like as a very advanced training
because I learned a lot in a really intense way so it was very similar to how I
see teaching generally but really underneath the surface it was so much more than
that. It was more a facilitation of connecting people across different disciplines.
But beyond that, and the thing I hadn't quite appreciated, it was the connections
into other aspects of society that if you'd asked me beforehand, how do you engage
with government or how do you engage with the media as an academic? I think I
would have been a bit stumped. I would have thought that someone else could maybe
do that with an university or someone else's role, maybe the other person who's a
liaison, I hadn't really quite clocked it as an academic, you've got this way of
connecting into different aspects of social life and so I think Scottish Gospel for
me is, it's a way of understanding your role as an academic and as a citizen and
a way of kind of feeding into the processes and decision -making and the discourse
in public life. Mirala, anything to add to or subtract to or change from that?
Well, I would say the advertised thing would be that it's a leadership development
program that makes you think about the big picture, but I would describe it that
it's a life -changing experience. It's not just a program, it's an experience you go
through that really tests your resilience as well as your confidence and awareness of
yourself and others. When I first joined in 2009 I still remember kind of finishing
the first labs so the first two days and we were all back on the train to either
St Andrews, Dundee or Aberdeen and none of us were speaking anymore because we were
absolutely exhausted because we were pushed to the limits and that's why I call it
a life -changing experience really because it really brought out the best in us and
from those around us. Emily? It was difficult to come after Robin and Mirella on
this one, but I agree with the leadership program part, especially leadership in
fostering creativity and disability to develop and foster relationship across sector
and discipline. To me, that was the key thing with, like Mirella said, this big
picture ambition and keeping an eye on societal grand challenge and thinking about
how everything is connected and how everyone will play a part in solving those
complex challenges. So we've said that this is a life -changing experience. Let's get
on to where your changed lives are now and we may as well start with you. Emily,
you seem to have these these two roles, Professor of Human Nutrition at Glasgow and
Director of SCAF, can you just say what you do in those two roles and how you
divide your time between them? So my main role is at the University of Glasgow
where I'm a Professor of Human Nutrition and that comes with teaching, research and
administration activities and SCAF, the Scottish Alliance for Food, is a project which
is by the Scottish Funding Council and it's really a vehicle to foster
transdisciplinary research in the field of food. So I've got a leadership role with
CAV, which is making sure that we deliver on our commitment and at the moment is
taking quite a large part of my time because I think it's a very worthwhile
endeavor where we're trying to kind of really connect with other disciplines, other
sectors around challenge of food? And not just academic disciplines. I mean,
this is something Robin was alluding to before about the Scottish Parliament. It's
realising how science connects with wider society. That's right. And it's not just
academics, it's also people working in government, local government, Scottish
government, UK government, people working in charity sectors, people working in
industry, members of the public who are interested and want to contribute. It's
really taking this very democratic approach to doing research and stopping a little
bit, listening to what other people have to say and building research projects
differently. It must have been pointed out to you that SCAF sounds like scoff as in
eating food quickly. I want to know if that is by chance or design. It's nice and
by chance, no design. I think coming up with acronyms is always challenging and to
some extent that's the one we landed on. We wanted to be quite clear that it was
something about Scotland. It's not just about Scottish researchers doing things for
Scotland in Scotland, but it's very much rooted in where we are with a global
outlook. There were many different acronyms, different ideas, and this one is the one
that stuck. But yeah, I think anything to do with food always elicits a lot of
reactions. And I think we could have picked anything it would have wrote some vivid
ideas or pictures in the mind of people. Merilla, you're now research director of
the Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Center. So what does that mean you do on a
day to day basis? Yeah, so a little bit like Emily, she said, I mean,
my day -to -day job is a professor in diabetes physiology, so I run a research
group, I have a number of fellows in my lab, PhD students, clinical fellows,
I teach as well. But of course, the director of Aberdeen Cardiovascular Diabetes
Centre, or as we like to call ourselves, ACDC, is really quite a great job as
well. So about Six years ago, we came together to be under one umbrella of all the
clinical and discovery scientists coming into ACDC together with nutritionists,
dietitians, and really trying to, just like Emily said, like address societal
challenges, we want to understand what it is that patients want and patients require
and we try and answer those questions. We come together in big bids for
interdisciplinary challenges. But until last year as well, I was also the dean for
industrial engagement and research within the University of Aberdeen and that was a
really interdisciplinary leadership role, which kind of was a really exciting one as
well. That was 50 % of my time and it was kind of trying to connect up academics
and researchers with companies with businesses, and then trying to address those
questions and solutions in a really meaningful way. And it was quite an exciting job
to do. As I said, last year I stepped down from that so I can concentrate on
research activities. But we have a number of projects where we run knowledge transfer
partnerships as well. So working with SMEs within Scotland and within Aberdeen,
trying to come up with kind of solutions in healthcare. And this is again where it
kind of links back into the crucible. I don't think I would have been quite able
to think in the way I think today if I hadn't been exposed early on in my kind
of academic journey to people who do think differently and think, you know, okay,
I'm a biochemist, pharmacologist by training, but that doesn't define me. I can
actually answer much of societal questions. - And that's an important attitudinal
change rather than running into people who have a different frame of reference, a
different background, different vocabulary, different jargon, different way of doing
things. They're thinking, well, this is not for me. You end up going, oh, you're
different. This is interesting. Tell me more. And that encourages the development of
collaborations and such like. - Absolutely. I always say to the students as well, you
should go to as many talks as you can or your time affords because you don't know
what you're going to be exposed to. You know, every day is a school day. So
absolutely. And I also can't believe I didn't spot ACDC is an abbreviation as well.
So it's great. There's just before I move on to Robin, we should probably say that
research you're doing, this is very wide ranging. It's everything from drug discovery
to test for COVID combating Alzheimer's. This is the interesting thing.
So my My background really is obesity, diabetes, cardiometabolic disease, but it was
interesting, like I said, you know, when a challenge presents itself, you can switch
and you can think slightly differently. So when COVID -19 came around, I got
contacted by an SME saying, we've got this fantastic new platform we're trying to
develop, and we think it would be amazing for development of COVID -19 tests as
those mutants were coming around. So we reopened our labs. We go funding from the
Scottish government to try and develop much better and sensitive tests. So as I say,
as a biochemist, you can use your knowledge from your early training to actually
change disease. You're not, you're not defined by the disease. So likewise with
Alzheimer's, I went to an interesting talk by a translational neuroscientist and I
thought, gosh, everything that she was talking about, we work on, but in the context
of diabetes. And that's how we struck up a collaboration which has now been ongoing
for 10 years. Oh that's brilliant. Now Robin I'm reluctant to tell my 13 year old
that you exist because if he knew there was such a thing as a professor of game
design and culture he might start thinking that time on the PS4 cancer studying. My
children both want to work in games and they're running up at the same age and
what I found is that it's increasing the moving more and more towards online and
digital culture generally generally. So they're very interesting streaming and media
and communication beyond just games. But you know what, if you told me that you
could be a professor of game design when I was a star team, that would be very
helpful. I didn't really know what I wanted to do and I didn't really, I knew that
interest in that area and creativity, but I hadn't really seen it as a career
choice. Given how important gaming is to the UK economy, you would think there'll be
loads of equivalent professors to you? Is that the case or are you or are they few
and far between? It's actually quite diverse. I think the way that I approach games,
and I think this is sometimes helpful, especially when I'm talking to my students as
well, is understanding that games isn't really an academic discipline. It's more mode
of communication and social engagement. And therefore, actually, there's many, many
more people involved and interested in games academically, including professors, But
they tend to come from all walks of life, which is interesting because it speaks to
the nature of Scottish Crucible, really the game sector as an industry, but also as
an academic area in the UK, which is quite well established as well. It is really
a melting pot of computer scientists, human computer interaction specialists,
psychologists, designers, artists, animators, all such different folks work in this
space. You call it a melting pot And of course, another word for a melting pot is
crucible, which is very handy here as well. And for those who aren't aware of it,
it might be worth just saying why you're in Dundee. It's not just that there is
Avatar University in Dundee. There is a whole centre of the games industry there. It
is, yes. It's one of the main centres in the UK. One of the interesting things is
that actually a lot of the manufacturing of computers in the 1980s including the ZX
spectrum actually took place in Dundee and that was a kind of genesis for some of
the early game developers including DMA Design who went on to make Grand Theft Auto
and Lemmings why they originated in Dundee and really Abertay is a knock on the
effect of that. It was the emergence of this new creative sector in Dundee in the
1980s that was the foundation for a university like Abertay which is quite a small
lean university and it was a very new university at that time in the 90s why they
wanted to try and tackle this as a new interesting academic subject. So you've said
your role isn't a strictly kind of scientific, well what is your jobs remit and
what is your research remit? So I say a professor of game design and culture, so I
see that as being two sides of different types of research. One is that Primarily,
I see myself as a games creative and a maker. Most of my research really is
practice -based and experimental, so making games is kind of what I do a lot of the
time. One of the games I've been working on more recently, for instance, is a board
game in collaboration with one of my colleagues, which is around safe walking in
urban spaces for women. And that's something that we're trying to push quite hard
just now in terms of how that can be used in the educational settings. But on the
other side, the cultural aspects of what I do is more about What are the role of
games within wider societies? So I was quite heavily involved in one of the arts
and humanities research council funded creative industries clusters, which was in
Dundee, which was in game. And a lot of that was similar to the ethos of Scottish
Crucible and that it was about bringing people together and finding ways to connect
different types of stakeholder. And I think, but that's part of my role. So I've
been collaborating with organisations like RNIB, for instance, on ways of improving
accessibility for players with sight loss, and that's been having kind of really
strong impact on what I still kind of really see as my main job,
which is about education. We've got quite a lot of startup companies in Dundee,
startup games companies that is, almost all of whom are Aperture graduates, and a
lot of them are my former students. I couldn't really you've done if I hadn't done
crucible because it was about leadership and it was about making these connections
and I think trying to bring benefits to other people around me and making their
work stronger as a result that's kind of how I see my role. And maybe it's a bit
of a stretch but you could say that the Scottish crucible is a sort of form of
gamification, it's a classic learning through playing. It definitely is, yeah, well
it's real -based, so that's the main thing for me, so any game must be real based,
it must be freedom of movement within it, that's another kind of definition of play,
but I think it's also got really clear objectives in there and it's bringing people
together and it's kind of generating new knowledge, new ideas and I mean looking
back some of the people I connected with in my Crucible cohort, we connected
properly for the first time through one of the games within Scottish Crucible which
would have been the kind of almost speed -dating type workshop that we've done, and
I still collaborate with those people today. So it's a really useful form of
gamification. - Yes, I think we officially call it speed networking, but everybody
always calls it speed -dating.
No, no, the fact that you're all here today, obviously shows you still have some
affection for Scottish Crucible, but is it a sort of fond memory or something you
think about and draw every day and I'm going to start with Myrla. Yeah,
it's definitely a fun experience. I have to say my husband did a couple of years
after me. I think he was probably in Emily's cohort actually because I recommended
this so highly. I wouldn't stop talking about it. I think it does that sense of
belonging as well. So every year we were invited to the next cohort's graduation as
I would call it. And you could see that kind of spark and enthusiasm and exhaustion
in everyone. And it's just been, I think it's been a wonderful experience of kind
of building up networks. And what I found interesting is within Scotland, at least
when, when Young Academy of Scotland was formed, X many years ago, I can't even
remember anymore, half of the members in the first cohort that I was part of were
coming from Scottish Crucible. And that tells you something. It tells you that the
people who were kind of developing those skills as future leaders were actually kind
of following that path. And now, even within the Royal Society of Edinburgh, so many
of alumni from Scottish Crucible and Young Academy of Scotland are part of it.
So it is definitely, I would say, a friendship circle. And also, any time I have
needed kind of help or a new collaboration, I could easily tap into any of the
cruciblists. As I said, it's a friendship circle more than just the leadership
development program. Yes, it's not something you do and then it's done, it's
something you add and it's always with you. Emily? Absolutely. Those alumni dinners
were really, really important in fostering relationship, not within your year cohort,
but also across cohorts. And I think it's it's evident pretty much every day of my
working life that I am in contact with someone who has done crucible and it's a
mindset you know that those people have gone through a program and experience which
sets them maybe apart in terms of how they think and how they anticipate new
collaboration or relationship, and I think that's really useful because it gives you
a very strong foundation to build on, even though you might not have really met
those people before, or you might not know much about them, but just this crucible
connection makes it quite particular. Robin, I still do think about Scottish Crucible
quite frequently. I think not only because I'm still in contact with people that I
can have met through Scottish Crucible and collaborate with and I can call my
friends now, but also 'cause I think it has shaped the way that I think about my
practice as an academic, as a lecturer, as a teacher, I get emails most weeks from
people who are looking to learn more about games, how it might benefit their company
or their organization, or if they're another academic from their department, how they
might connect with us. And I think every time I get one of those emails or phone
calls whenever I chat to someone. I think I'm quite mindful of the fact that what
I'm doing is something that I learned how to do through Scottish CRISPR or
appreciated why this was an important thing to do. So yeah, I think it does impact
most of what I do. Thank you. We could go on, but actually we can't go on because
we're out of time. My thanks to all three of you. Emily Combe, Professor of Human
Nutrition at the University of Glasgow and Director of SCAF, the Scottish Alliance
for Food, Mirola Dilebegovic, Research Director at the Aberdeen Cardiovascular and
Diabetes Centre and Professor in Diabetes Physiology and Signalling at the University
of Aberdeen and Robin Sloan, Professor of Game Design and Culture at Abertais
University. If you've enjoyed this, I really hope you have. There are more of these
talking to not just Scottish cruciblists but European cruciblists, sometimes about
their projects, sometimes about their involvement in crucible and sometimes a bit of
both.